Glory and Gore
by whimsycality
Summary: Shepard wakes up, bare moments after dying in agony, and has to deal with a universe that's spent two years moving on without her and a war that needs her more than ever.
1. Chapter 4

**A/N:** Good news! I had the sudden intense urge to replay ME2 last night and have been writing furiously ever since, so there should be more of this soon.

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"Two years?" Shepard can't hide her shock, can't stop her voice from breaking a little over the words. There isn't time for this. They're being attacked and every sense she has is screaming that the situation is FUBAR and they need to get the hell out of dodge. But this stranger is staring at her, awe and compassion in his eyes, and she can't move past what he said. Can't move past those two words.

Two _years_.

Two years of the universe spinning on without her. Two years of recovery and rebuilding on the Citadel. Two years of Alliance and Spectre missions. Two years of her crew's lives. Two years for _Liara_. Where did she go? What is she doing?

Does anyone know she's here, does anyone outside of these strangers know she's alive? Surely not, or they would be here, right? They wouldn't have let her wake up alone to find out that it's been _two fucking years_.

The stranger, Jacob, clearly doesn't know what to say and the interruption of laser fire from another security mech is enough to force her emotions down, training and experience taking over as she coldly takes down the mech with a headshot and overloads the system of the one behind it.

 _Two years._ As they disable more mechs, run into a scientist she doesn't trust at all, and continue to make their way out of this hellhole of a station, it is a running chant in the back of her head. Two years, two years, two years. She almost laughs when she realizes she missed her thirtieth birthday. Is she younger than Garrus now? She used to give him so much shit about being six months older than him.

And then Jacob decides to drop another bomb on her.

"It's funded and controlled by Cerberus."

Suddenly all of her shock and horror and confusion is gone in a blinding flash of rage.

 _Cerberus_. That name is the sound of soldiers, teammates, dying, the feel of the ground opening beneath her feet as a Thresher Maw lunges toward the sky. That name is cruel, inhuman experiments and mutilated corpses. That name is everything she hates and she's more sure than ever that none of her crew, her friends, know she's alive, because they would never have left her with these bastards.

"We are going to get out of this station and then we're going to have a long fucking talk about why I shouldn't kill you and this Illusive Man," she grits out between clenched teeth, then turns and shoots another damned mech because she doesn't trust herself to look at him or Wilson without pulling the trigger.

Fucking Cerberus. What the hell happened while she was gone?


	2. Chapter 5

Freedom's Progress is eerily silent, none of the bustle of people and machinery that a new colony should have. It is a painful reminder of Mindoir and she finds herself grateful that whoever, whatever, is attacking these colonies, isn't leaving bodies behind. Grateful that there are no dead stacked like lumber, no children lying in the streets discarded like rag dolls.

She knows Miranda and Jacob can see how on edge she is, and hopes they attribute it to the fact that she still doesn't trust Cerberus when it comes to anything they've told her, much less the fate of the universe.

By the time the first mech starts shooting she's grateful for the release of tension, the sounds of battle and the rush of adrenaline that has nothing to do with post-traumatic stress.

It's also a promising sign that there is something here to find, that this mission might actually help her figure out who's taking out human colonies and how she can stop them.

She's feeling almost cheerful when they run into the small group of quarians and her breath catches in her throat. It's Tali. She'd recognize her voice and that distinctive purple anywhere.

Part of her has been in such deep shock that none of this has felt real. Her death, resurrection, the two years during which the whole damn galaxy dug it's head in the sand like a scared ostrich. Maybe it was a dream, or a coma hallucination. Maybe Cerberus was lying to her, concocting an elaborate scam. Maybe she was dead and this was some sick, twisted afterlife.

But the shock in Tali's voice, the way her hand flutters like she wants to reach out, to test if Shepard is real. It's enough to make her believe. She's here. This is real. She was gone and now she's back and all of this is real.

"It's me, Tali." Her mouth twitches into a crooked smile. "I don't know how to believe it either. Apparently Cerberus decided bringing me back from the dead was a better idea than their previous policy of routinely trying to kill me."

"Likely story, no organization would commit so many resources to bring back one soldier," one of Tali's men scoffs and Shepard can't help her soft snort. She thinks it's stupid too, has no idea why the Illusive Man did it, no matter what line he's trying to sell her. The whole thing is ridiculous, but then, her whole life has been ridiculous since the moment that Prothean spire invaded her brain.

Tali disagrees and is quick to defend her. "You haven't seen Shepard in action, Prazza. Trust me, it was money well spent."

Shepard smiles, feeling warm from something besides anger for the first time since waking up. Tali is just as smart and sharp and sweet as she remembers and she is so glad to see the other woman. Her throat tightens at the thought of everyone else she left behind, everyone else who thinks she's dead.

How is she supposed to do this without her team?


	3. Chapter 1

**AN:** Title stole from the excellent Lorde song. This will be a mostly linear collection of scenes surrounding the events of ME2. Expect canon-typical triggers, but if I need to warn for anything specific, please let me know.

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She remembers dying. She remembers the shock of the explosion and the look of horror on Joker's face. She remembers falling, burning, unable to breathe. She remembers just wanting it to end.

She doesn't remember death. She wonders, sometimes, if there are species who do. If Liara would have experiences of _after_. Or if there even was an after, for anyone, or maybe just for her.

She remembers waking up. Disoriented, confused, angry, afraid. Miranda's face, tight with worry.

This is what she remembers most, when she wakes again and is truly alive: pain and fear and anger. This is what sticks with her. This is what keeps her going when she learns the truth. Learns what she lost. Learns who brought her back.

Cerberus.

The mysterious organization responsible for the vicious slaughter that defined her career before Saren. The people who torture and experiment and kill in the name of progress and human domination.

It grates, that people, _her_ people, think she's working for them. That she is capable of forgiving and forgetting. She who has never forgotten a single enemy in her life.

It grates even more that she is working _with_ them, because they are the only ones willing to fight the enemy the rest of the universe has ignored while she was dead and gone.

She hates Cerberus, and she has not forgotten that they are her enemy—older than most, maybe the oldest still alive. But she fears the Reapers, and what they will do to this universe full of amazing people and planets. She knows, with a certainty stronger than the beat of her new and improved heart, that they are coming. And she would work with worse if it meant keeping all those people alive.

If anyone knew her, really knew her, they wouldn't need that explained to them.


	4. Chapter 6

As grateful as she is that Cerberus so carefully crafted a new Normandy, the ship itself is a minefield. Every corridor is filled with ghosts, the CIC empty of expected faces, the Engineering deck filled with Gabby and Ken's chatter instead of Wrex's grunting laugh as he, Ashley, and Garrus compared weapons and war stories. Seeing Tali made it worse, the reminder of all she had, and all she lost.

It makes her grateful for the differences, for the obvious and out of place changes that help remind her that she's two years into the future, that nothing is the same, least of all her and her ship.

And for Joker, whose sense of humor is completely unchanged and who seems completely unruffled by any of their new circumstances, with the exception of his contentious rivalry with EDI.

She spends hours in the cockpit, listening to him bicker with the AI and staring out the viewport until the sight of stars and black no longer makes her remember fire and pain and fighting for a breath that never came.

It's the closest she's going to get to therapy, along with her near nightly chats with Chakwas over a glass of whatever booze is handy. Chambers is sweet, but she's far too loyal to Cerberus and their human-first agenda for Shepard to even consider confiding in her, and she certainly wouldn't trust anyone else Cerberus offered if she mentioned that a psychologist might be a good idea for someone who, you know, _died_.

Rage hits her, at random moments. Long-held anger at the organization now funding her, fresh frustration at the rest of the universe's willful ignorance to the Reaper threat, irrational resentment to her friends for not being here, for not knowing. And an endless font of self-directed fury, that she hadn't been good enough, fast enough to save her ship and the people on it. That she hadn't saved _herself_. Sick self-loathing at the thought of what the soldiers she lost on Akuze would say if they could see her now, in bed with the man whose organization orchestrated their deaths.

She wakes gasping from nightmares, clawing at her throat as if her room is as empty of air as the void behind the glass above her bed.

She drinks too much, sleeps too little, and spends hours reading through Cerberus reports on what's happened since she died. No one cajoles her in to taking breaks like Tali and Garrus used to. There's no Ashley to bully her into eating, no Wrex to challenge her into blowing off steam. Jacob is cautious and professional. Miranda watches, everything, but only offers observations on mission related topics.

She's alive, she has a universe to save, and some days she doesn't care at all.


	5. Chapter 2

The relief when she sees Garrus, the relief when they get him out alive—battered and scarred perhaps, but alive—is matched only when he is the first of her old companions to give her no grief over her new partners in crime. He gets it, the way she expected everyone to get it, and it's like being able to breathe again.

She gets drunk with Joker that night, while Dr. Chakwas is fussing over Garrus, this new, angrier Garrus who had clicked into place at her side like a missing limb.

"I'm so glad you're here. That you're both here," she tells her pilot and possibly only friend in the galaxy before today. EDI is making disapproving electronic noises in the corner of the cockpit and they both raise their glasses to her in toast before downing more whiskey.

Joker looks down at her, sprawled on the cool metal floor, and grins. "Even though Garrus seems to have taken the stick out of his butt and started beating people to death with it? Because I'm not sure that's an improvement, really."

Shepard flips him off and then laughs. "I don't know, the blunt force approach seems apropos these days. We tried diplomacy, remember? And then we blew up half the citadel while saving the galaxy and now everyone hates us, and is sticking their head up _their_ butts instead of dealing with the enemy still out there."

"There is that," Joker agrees, making a face as he stares into his glass and then glances at the screens in front of him. Even drunk, he doesn't trust anyone else to steer the ship, and Shepard feels a wave of fondness wash through her, warmer than the liquor.

"I'm glad you're alive."

He stares at her, eyes wide with surprise and something else, and then smiles crookedly. "Me too, commander, me too. But maybe, try not to get yourself killed this time keeping me that way, okay?"

She doesn't answer, not sure how to deal with the lingering guilt in his voice, and unwilling to make a promise she knows she can't guarantee and doesn't know if she _wants_ to keep. Instead she reaches up and clinks her glass against his. "To saving the galaxy, even when it doesn't want to be saved."

He drinks to her toast, doesn't comment on the way she didn't answer his not-quite question and that fondness swamps her again. If they survive this, and the Council and the Alliance ever clue in to reality, she's going to buy him _two_ leather chairs for whatever ship they end up on next.


	6. Chapter 3

"Why did you confront him alone, Shepard?" Garrus asks her when she wanders into the main battery later, his voice heavy with disapproval and his arms crossed over his chest. "He could have killed you. You should have taken in backup."

She laughs, a bitter sound, and leans against the bulkhead, matching his posture with a defiant tilt of her chin. "Krogans respect strength, not caution. I made the right choice."

He looks angry, in a way she's never seen directed at her. "You made the reckless choice."

She stares at him for a moment. "You're one to talk, _Archangel_." He grimaces, clearly frustrated but unable to argue, and she laughs again. Reckless. And what's wrong with that, exactly? "I can't die," she says, voice sharper than she intends. Everything about her now is sharp and raw and rough edged. "And even when I do, they just bring me back. You think Cerberus couldn't do it again? Probably be easier to fix a snapped neck than the burned out husk I was last time."

He flinches and she smiles, grim and satisfied despite the sour taste of guilt. She's seen the pictures. Needed to, to make it real. She wasn't mostly dead. She wasn't severely injured. She was a charred corpse and she has no idea how she's still here, walking and talking.

"Leave it, Garrus," she says, suddenly exhausted down to her bones. "I'm fine. Grunt's one of us now. Cerberus is still Cerberus. We've got work to do."


End file.
